Presented by Freedom Studios, The Mill is an example of the increasingly prevalent format of what might be termed woodwork theatre: whereby the audience is invited to explore an unconventional space until gradually the reasons for being there creep out of the woodwork. This proves to be remarkably successful, partly because the space is so evocative, but also as the stories it reveals have the ring of documentary truth.

Drummonds Mill opened in the 1880s, at a time when Bradford was responsible for a third of the world's wool production, and closed just under 10 years ago. We are led through its abandoned departments by caretaker Frank – played with self-deprecating melancholy by Geoff Leesley – and as the tour progresses it becomes increasingly apparent that we are journeying through Frank's own recollections, animated by apparitions of former mill-workers and the crushing roar of phantom looms. The production team, led by director Madani Younis, have created a symphony of voices in which the experiences of local wool-workers intertwine with the army of migrant workers who came to satisfy the mill's immense appetite for labour.

Yet it is the building itself which proves the real star: the vast floorplan of the weaving shed seems to redraw itself continually through the shifting perspective of pillars; narrow corridors extend like simulations in a computer game; while an arched, wooden void beneath eaves feels almost ecclesiastical. The project poses pertinent questions about what we want these redundant spaces to become. Gated developments of luxury apartments? Even if Drummonds can no longer sustain industry, at least it has temporarily been filled with imagination.